News

Otterbein faculty lead central Ohio discussion on climate change at working summit

January 17, 2018
Otterbein University

Delaware, OH—Saying the need is urgent, the time to act now, central Ohio educators will convene The Working Summit to Fight Climate Change on Saturday, Jan. 20, in Delaware. Hosted by the Central Ohio Community Project, the working summit will be held from 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. at the Stratford Ecological Center, 3083 Liberty Road.

“The world is threatened by fossils fuels, we know that,” says Otterbein University professor Terry Hermsen. “Schools and universities must lead by helping groups already committed to change to reach others who aren't as yet.”

Hermsen and other Otterbein faculty — Andrew Mills, Melissa Gilbert, Heidi Ballard, Paul Wendel and Bethany Vosburg-Bluem — founded the Central Ohio Community Project last year. The group’s summit will bring together a wide range of people from colleges and high schools, cities and counties, non-profits, businesses, parks and farming organizations to share knowledge and create action projects.

“We will talk,” says Hermsen, “but we will talk toward action, toward joining together to create projects that can educate and can continue efforts to reduce our use of fossils fuels and environmentally dangerous chemicals. Even something as simple as food: we can grow more of our food locally and we can waste less of it.”

The summit will begin with a keynote address by renowned climate writer David Orr, from Oberlin College, who headed efforts to design, fund and build the Adam Joseph Lewis Center at Oberlin, which has been called one of the most important green buildings of the 20th century. Orr is the author of eight books, including Dangerous Years: Climate Change and the Long Emergency (Yale, 2016).

“Many positive changes are already underway,” says Hermsen. “We are meeting to share news of progress. But our efforts must intensify too. We must help each other and our students realize that the responsibility for change is in each one of us. We’ve waited for top-down change, and some good things have been initiated worldwide, especially the Paris Climate Accords, but we must help each other realize that we must move beyond the idea of saving the world for our grandchildren. We must save the world by acting in our region right now.”

Organizations attending the summit include Otterbein and Ohio Wesleyan universities, Ohio State University-Marion, the cities of Westerville, Delaware and Marion, the Citizens Climate Lobby, the Marion Technical School of Ohio, the MAD Scientists Associates, the Center for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies (CERES), the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Marion Ohio Regional Planning Commission, Delaware Country Parks, Simply Living Community Organization and the Ohio Environmental Council.

About the Central Ohio Community Project:The Central Ohio Community Project is a group of central Ohioans uniting their forces to address the threats of climate change. By talking together, comparing what we are already doing and looking for steps where we can take things further, we can increase our momentum in addressing this urgent global problem with effective local action. We are committed to the hope that changes are indeed possible and can even bring us and our neighbors together in ways we may not have imagined. The group includes college folks, business folks, government leaders, city planners, farmers, young people, non-profit groups already active in fighting climate change, city and county council members, scientists, sociologists, leaders and dreamers of all kinds. Its purpose is to share what we all are doing already, consider options and compare ideas — and then build an action plan, or set of action plans, that can lift our efforts to that new level.

About the Keynote Speaker:David W. Orr is counselor to the president at Oberlin College and Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, Emeritus. He is the author of eight books, including Dangerous Years: Climate Change and the Long Emergency (Yale, 2016) and Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (Oxford, 2009), and co-editor of three others. He has authored over 220 articles, reviews, book chapters, and professional publications. In the past 25 years he has served as a board member or adviser to 10 foundations and on the boards of many organizations including the Rocky Mountain Institute, Bioneers, and the Aldo Leopold Foundation. He is currently a trustee of the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, Children and Nature Network, and the WorldWatch Institute. He has been awarded eight honorary degrees and a dozen other awards including a Lyndhurst Prize, a National Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation, leadership awards from the U.S. Green Building Council (2014) and from Second Nature (2012), and a lifetime achievement award from Green Energy Ohio. He has lectured at hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Asia. He headed the effort to design, fund, and build the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, which was named by an American Institute of Architects panel in 2010 as “the most important green building of the past 30 years,” as “one of 30 milestone buildings of the 20th century” by the U.S. Department of Energy, and as one of “52 game-changing buildings of the past 170 years” by the editors of Building Design + Construction in January 2016. He was instrumental in the making of the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center. He started the Oberlin Project and one of the founders of the journal Solutions.